Abstract

This study was undertaken to assess links between suicidality, panic disorder, psychosis, bipolar depression, depressive-mania and pure-mania. The subjects are a consecutive series of 129 persons with bipolar disorder who were admitted to a university teaching hospital; 53 had bipolar depression, 32 had depressive-mania and 44 had pure-mania. They met the Research Diagnostic Criteria (RDC) for major depressive disorder (bipolar depression), primary mania (pure-mania) or both disorders (depressive-mania) at entry into the study. Suicidality, intra-episode panic disorder (IEPD) and psychotic features were ascertained using structured interviews. Sources of data included a routine clinical interview, serial clinical assessments, the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (SADS), the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R and reviews of charts. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to determine the strength of the relationships between suicidality, IEPD, psychotic features and the phase of illness. The rates of suicidality (79.3%, 56.3% and 2.3%), IEPD (62.3%, 62.5% and 2.3%) and psychotic features (52.8%, 96.9% and 88.6%) differed significantly between the groups with bipolar depression, depressive-mania and pure-mania. Subjects with bipolar depression and depressive-mania resembled one another with respect to the severity, but not rate of suicidality. They had identical rates of IEPD. Subjects with bipolar depression had a higher probability of being suicidal and a lower probability of being psychotic than persons with either subtype of mania. Pure-mania was distinguished by low rates of suicidality and IEPD. The authors describe directions for prospective studies of the relationships between phase of illness and phenomena in groups of bipolar persons.